This invention generally relates to apparatus for dispensing particulate materials, and more specifically, to apparatus for dispensing a blended composition of particulate ingredients.
Several food products consist of a uniform blend or mixture of two, three or more different particulate ingredients and, for example, jelly powder includes sugar particles mixed in a gelatin powder. These food products are normally prepared by blending large quantities of the ingredients together to produce a uniform bulk mixture, filling a large dispensing or feeding small quantities of this large bulk mixture into small, individual packages that are then prepared for sale to the consumer.
With such a process, it is difficult to insure that the small quantities fed into the individual packages always contain the proper proportion of the different ingredients because, among other reasons, the ingredients may tend to segregate from each other as they pass through large conventional particulate dispensing devices. Several prior art particle dispensing processes and apparatus are known that generally produce excellent results; however, even with such processes and apparatus, normally, both the first and the last few pounds of product drawn from the dispensing apparatus do not contain the proper proportion of ingredients. Usually, these first and last few pounds of the product are not used to fill the small packages and, instead, are drawn from the dispensing apparatus, later remixed with fresh ingredients, and re-poured, with these fresh ingredients, back into the dispensing apparatus.
For example, apparatus similar to the one shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,883 has been used to dispense a jelly powder into small packages. In particular, the apparatus utilized to dispense the mix included a cylindrical top bin section, a pair of coaxial, cones extending inwardly downwardly from the bin section, and an outlet section extending downward from those cones. The whole apparatus was filled with about 1500 pounds of the jelly powder, which had previously been mixed to obtain a uniform blend of the constituent ingredients; and a pair of delivery arms were connected to the outlet of the apparatus and used to fill small packages at about 85 grams of the jelly powder to each package.
Generally, good results were obtained with this process, and the vast majority off the filled packages contained the desired proportion of ingredients. However, contrary to expectations, the proportion of ingredients in the approximately first and last fifty pounds of product dispensed from the apparatus deviated appreciably from acceptable standards, and those first and last fifty pounds were not used to fill the small individual packages. Rather, in accordance with the previously mentioned usual procedure, those first and last fifty pounds of product were simply drawn from the dispensing apparatus, remixed with new ingredients, and then repoured, with the new ingredients, back into the dispensing apparatus.